THIS BIG GIRL CRIES

The age old struggle for teachers and professors of all ages... How do I get my students motivated to learn? After 4 complete months, we've come full circle... about 248 times. What do I mean?

How to get 12-18 year old Spanish students speaking English:

• Be seen on Saturday night at the bar or discoteca
• Be seen on Saturday night at the bar or discoteca drinking a beer
• Be seen on Saturday night at the bar or discoteca drinking a beer and dancing
• Be seen on Saturday night at the bar or discoteca socializing with anyone besides your students
• Be seen on Saturday night at the bar or discoteca socializing with an older male friend (old to them is 25) "You with old mans!"
  
• Say 'fuck' or 'puta mierda'
• Tell them how to say 'porro' in English and later have to reassure them by saying, "No Jorge, it wasn't a joint, it was a cigarette"
  
• Ask them about what they are going to do next Saturday

So, I did some brainstorming. Everything is definitely in the works, as the ideas aren't pouring out of my head for ways to make linguistics and pronunciation lessons enticing. But slowly, they are becoming more obedient, I can see a little more effort from a select few and they continue to crack me up.. My name being yelled with far too many rolled R's: KARRRRRRRRRRRRRLI!

Today I wrote the word evil on the board.
I said the word slowly: "e v i l"
They repeated: "ay-veel"
I said the word slowly again: "eeeeee-vuuuuul"
They repeated: ""ayyyyyyyy-veeeeeel"

MADRE MÍA

I wrote on the board: "ivol"
They repeated: "evil"

See, I figured it out. It's a new language, written but not oral, that twists the spelling of English vocabulary which corresponds to the Spanish pronunciation. For Spaniards to correctly pronounce "evil" they need the respective Spanish vowels that will effectively produce the correct English pronunciation. Well it's a bit flawed because Spanish only has 5 vowels so I'll have to think of a way to trick them into forming the the impossible English phonemes. But for now, I'm focusing on other ways to get their brains kick started with an English boost!

This week, in all the 3rd year classes (equivalent to freshmen) we did a specialized listening activity involving music. A fill in the blanks type, lyric style. I searched through my 6,320 iTunes jams for the perfect mix of Pop-American-International-Appropriate-Slow song, because with all the right ingredients, they are very capable of performing the task at hand. Nothing. Couldn't find a song. To answer your concern Caleb, youtube does function in countries across the globe.. So I browsed. Spain loves Lady Gaga. Lyrics not appropriate for school. Spain loves Green Day. Too much band sounds. Spain loves Justin Timberlake. "Cry Me a River" is too repetitive. It needed to be challenging, with a variety of vocabulary. Spain loves Black Eyed Peas. "I got a feeling" would only provoke memories of every Saturday night at the disco. Too distracting. But that's when I found it. Fergie. Lame love-break up song. Not too much band. For two weeks now, I've had THIS song stuck in my head.. I thought I'd share my misery with you.

Well, true to every Thursday, my weekend begins. And I got paid today. AND the sun is out. Time to play!

IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER,

I have two things to share with the world:

1.) I need a physical/check-up at the doctor's office here in Calatayud so I can be cleared to work again next year. I enter the medical offices. I tell her what I need: "I need proof I am in good health." She tells me: "You need to go to the Tobacco store and get an Official Medical Certificate, then I can help you."

Really, Spain?


2.) As children, Germans learn English from Penny Popcorn the Puppet.

Happy Friday!

LIKE MY DAD ALWAYS SAYS... "THE ONLY THING I LIKE BETTER THAN GOLF, IS FREE GOLF"

Let me break my Granada/Málaga roadtrip down for you in the simplest way:

Gratis: housing, food and laughs
Road trip
A flamenco show
No, Europeans do not know how to shuffle cards
A certain early morning snack
Deanna's public vomiting
Arabic

Y language barriers rule

Morrocan tapas
Ártist affair
La Alhambra
Años cumplidos por Sara. Happy 23rd, chica
Good morning from our ocean front hotel!
And a lot of sunshine

(and Torremolinos)

Outside of the Cathedral in Málaga where we had a potential (very likely) siting of Robert Downey Jr.



The aforementioned Cathedral.




...in it's almost entirety




Conveniently located in the plaza of the Cathedral, thank you for the amazing patatas bravas




Emily and her mom Deanna on their ocean front balcony in Málaga. Can you guess if the balcony that I am standing on is also ocean front? Yes, free ocean front housing. Thank you Deanna, I hope we repaid you in innumerable laughs.



Liquor store security.



Post-Indian food feast. Ethnic food, found almost nowhere in Spain.




Flamenco show. Unfortunately it is not possible to see from these photos but the stage is set in front of a large window with a view of the Alhambra illuminated at night. Absolutely brilliant.














Frederico Garcia Lorca's summer home in Granada. This is where he wrote and painted most of his works. I touched his desk. Before the city development, back then, he had a view of the Alhambra from his bedroom window. Probably also did a lot of daydreaming about Salvador Dalí in that room...



Meet Luis, Sara's salsa instructor from years back. He housed us for 3 nights in Granada and guided us to some of the best tapa bars in the city. FREE GOLF!



This is how TAPAS work: Order a beverage, free plate of food. Refill your beverage, next plate of food. Then you pay for your 5, 6, 7, 8 beers and you're content in more than one way.




Fried eggplant chips.


La Alhambra. 14th Century Moorish fortress. The greatest and most preserved in all the land. It's brilliantly perfect: location, lighting, construction, and artistic flare. You'll see.



That is Emily's mom Deanna (who drove us to Granada and accompanied us around).. Perhaps it was jet-lag blues or she was completely awestruck with the Alhambra's beauty. Either way, Deanna got a little sick and in the enormity of the fortress, and it was basically impossible to find a bathroom close by. This was not the first bush that received her love, but it held her up and did it's job. I wonder how many other people have left their bodily fluids on the Alhambra...?




Emily being artsy or something. I guess it's not too hard to be inspired.




The chicas and I in front of the city at sunset.




La ciudad de Granada





One of many reflecting pools at La Alhambra. These are the most beautiful as it's Islamic architecture meets Christian influence of gardens and ground work.




Creatures




Now you have made it to the inside of the fortress. Hundreds of walls, pilars, floors and ceilings articulately carved by the Moors.



Arabic, what does it say Cammy?



Not one corner un-carved.



Oh and my favorite: Carvings meet tile.



Reflecting pool





Mmm, wrap that in a tortilla.





Probably the most famous photo of the Alhambra.




I was there!




More arabic for Cammy to transcribe, although after posting this I realize that it's backwards.




I'm not sure which way is the floor and which way is the ceiling.












AND HERE IS A CLIP FROM OUR FLAMENCO SHOW.
THE GYPSY TRADITION OF CAVE FLAMENCO CONTINUES ON, NO MATTER HOW TOURISTY, IT REMAINS INCREDIBLY TRADITIONAL.






The whole trip was planned for Sara's birthday weekend.
She studied abroad in Granada for a semester in college and she wanted to re-visit her favorite city. It was an amazing trip of eating, drinking, dancing, and standing with our mouths to the floor engulfed in hundreds of years of history, art and literature. Besides the Alhambra, my favorite location was our Moroccan tapas bar. Two nights we stuffed our faces with cous-cous, empanadas, spinach dishes, potatoey goodness, etc. We celebrated Sara's 23rd and went salsa dancing for her special night. I salsa'd. YES, that happened. Form dancing with rules and movements. We met great people, and one of the first nights while enjoying a (VERY) late night/morning snack of churros con chocolate with an Italian, a German and a Bulgarian, I referred to Granada as the dirty south (This is while my body was so exhausted from dancing I almost fell asleep in my churros). Couple nights later, while playing cards and having tapas with the same German and Italian and having that ever so familiar conversation with foreigners (We are from California but teach English in Spain, where are you from?) the Italian says he's from some little town in Italy.... "In the dirty south." He speaks better Spanish then English. You can assume that I'm spreading my -isms everywhere I go. In other news, Europeans do not know how to shuffle cards. They do the little kid method of mixing them on the table face down, or just pulling random ones out of the pile and putting them on the bottom.

When they watch us shuffle and bridge, they wear a similar face to the one that was frozen on mine as I stared at the Alhambra for three hours.

Cheers from Granada...

THE ACTION OF THANKS

LA TROPA

MENOS YO...LA FOTO ES ASÍ:

SARA, REYES, ROSA, EMILI, JUAN JO, BEA, INMA, BLANCA, ANA MARI.
ONLY ONE OF MY CO-WORKERS CAME (BLANCA) BECAUSE THE OTHER 4 COMMUTE INTO CALATAYUD FROM ZARAGOZA AND IT'S PRETTY HECTIC AT SCHOOL RIGHT BEFORE THE HOLIDAYS.

Thanksgiving in Spain was a success.
Our menu went like this...

APPETIZERS:
homemade pumpkin hummus
roasted brie cheese spread, topped with berries and walnuts
(legit) Indian (pop)corn

LA CENA:
Homemade herb and garlic rolls
Taters of course! Butter bomb infused with roasted garlic
Vegan mushroom/garlic/spiced/onioned/soy/drop of vinagarette gravy
Roasted green beans and corn
Sweet potato casserole (cazuela de boniatos/batatas)
Stuffing (traditional)
Gravy normal
AND A GOLDEN BROWN, ABSOLUTELY THE OPPOSITE OF DRY, WITH NECK AND ESOPHAGUS AND INNARDS INTACT, GOOD ENOUGH TO HAVE ALL THE SPANIARDS SECOND GUESSING THEIR ONE FAITHFUL LOVE TO PORK, LEFTOVERS FOR DAYS, TURKEY.

To Finish Up:
Apple crisp pie (tarta de manzana)
Bizcocho (chocolate and lemon cake, basically)
Sprinklings of candy corn
and my baby: 1 fresh baked Pumpkin Pie + 7ish bite sized mini-morsels. Why would anyone ever buy a pie at the store or use canned pumpkin again? Thank goodness we found nutmeg (nuez moscada) and ginger (jengibre).

The profesoras and one profesor loved the dinner. True to (an Americanized) Spanish custom, we ate hearty food, drank bottle after bottle of wine, topped the evening off with espresso and enjoyed the company of 10 beautifully spirited and unique individuals for six hours, until they basically noticed that we, the three Americans, had indulged our souls with too much comfort food and basically fell asleep at the table. Yes, the Spaniards outlasted the Americans, and at half past one in the morning, they decided we should get some rest.

Leftovers were a plenty, so we had three friends (Óscar, Javi and Jorge) over on Sunday for a second, more informal Thanksgiving dinner. We finally learned how to play with Spanish cards (no 8's or 9's) and yet again, chatted around the table for at least 4 hours. By the way, by HAZ CLICKing on that link, you too can enjoy some local Spanish rap, recorded by Óscar, Jorge and a different Javier, known as Javi 1.

In other news, my 13 year old student ask me today if I have any childrens.

Lastly, we have yet another (it'll never get old saying that) puente (extended holiday weekend) starting Friday, which means no school until next Wednesday. And since I don't work Fridays, only 2 days next week of work, then Christmas vacation begins. Wow, I can't believe I've been here this long. It's happening again, just like in Barcelona... If I've identified this feeling correctly I think it's possible that I may already be feeling nostalgic to have to leave Cala-town. ¡Que triste! Pues, for the puente, the ladies and I are heading down south for some much needed sunshine. ANDALUCÍA!! Tapas galore and por fin, I get to see La Alhambra. We will be meeting Emily's mom in Madrid and taking a road trip to Granada and Málaga. Three American blondies and a spunky brunette driving 6 hours across the country of Spain...I'm already giggling. It is too bad we will be gone this weekend though, because apparently, we are missing out on some excellent cave parties in the nearby town of Paracuellos. We have a few friends from that pueblo and tis tradition for the Constitution holiday that the party relocates from the BIG city of Calatayud to the cave parties in Paracuellos. If I haven't already explained how the region of Aragón geographically functions, it's like this: Aragón is divided in 3 regions. Teruel, Huesca and Zaragoza. If you've asked for my address and wondered why the city is: Calatayud, Zaragoza, and not Calatayud, Aragón, well now you know. We are the 2nd biggest city in the Zaragoza region. So each region basically has 2 big cities, and there are hundreds of small pueblos surrounding us, most without high schools or any school at all.. Thus, all the kids bus in for school and for weekend parties. And (this one's for my family clan) everyone actually says: My pueblo.

Also, in one week from Saturday, I will be en route to Geneva, Switzerland, where I will be spending 2 days solo, then meeting with Adam and cruising to the Alps in the south of France for a few days. Did I just say that? Well yes, it's true. My life is incredible and I'm going to put in 200 percent effort at school that way I feel like I deserve this amazing break. So Geneva to France, France to Barcelona, Barcelona to northern Portugal, Portugal to Madrid to Cala, then to finish things up, Madrid for LA NOCHE VIEJA. My second New Years in this lovely country. ¡Que suerte!

Enjoy these foticos por favor. We'll talk soon.
Kephart......................................................out.

WE FAILED TO REMOVE THE NECK AND THROAT OF THE TURKEY. THAT WOULD HAVE REQUIRED US BREAKING THE SPINE AND PUTTING OUR HANDS IN THE BLOODY SEMI-HOLLOWED OUT GUT. A STRAW FOR AIR!

I'D SAY SOMETHING INAPPROPRIATE BUT GRANNY READS THIS. WHEN I ORDERED THE TURKEY, I ASKED THE BUTCHER HOW IT WILL LOOK WHEN I PICK IT UP. HE SAID, AND I QUOTE, "TÚ NO SUFRES" MEANING HE'LL CLEAN IT OUT, I WON'T SUFFER ANYTHING. WELL, SINCE HE DIDN'T EVEN PLUCK ALL THE FEATHERS OUT, YOU COULD IMAGINE SOME OF THE OTHER THINGS HE DID LEAVE INSIDE.



¡QUE FEA! AND I'M NOT TALKING ABOUT THE TURKEY..



PREPPING!




13 POUND TURKEY SUCCESS.

THIS IS MY BABY. ALTHOUGH, I MUST ADMIT, IT TOOK 1.5 ATTEMPTS TO GET IT RIGHT. AS IT TURNS OUT, HOMEMADE CRUST IS ALSO BETTER THAN STORE BOUGHT... IMAGINE!

PUMPKIN PIE DISKS. NOT ALL OF THEM SURVIVED, BUT ALL OF THEM WERE EATEN.

FALLA! FAIL NUMBER ONE. EDIBLE, BUT NOT PRESENTABLE.



PROOF. HOMEMADE, THIS I PROMISE!



PUMPKIN HUMMUS.




BRIE CHEESE MELTED SPREAD WITH BERRY-WALNUT YUMMIES ON TOP.
INCREÍBLE.




SARA'S BABY. YAMMIEZ




¡BUEN PROVECHO!




DESTROYED!!